Certain types of industrial assets, such as may be used for the transportation of a commodity through a pipeline, may extend over relatively long distances (e.g., hundreds of kilometers or more). For example, since the asset may be subject to variable physical conditions (e.g., temperature, mechanical stress, pressure) or may develop malfunctions (e.g., ruptures) anywhere along its length, it is desirable to provide the ability to reliably and cost-effectively monitor/sense various parameters along the length of the asset. Other industrial assets which may require monitoring of variable physical conditions may be deployed at multiple sites over a relatively large geographical area, such as wind energy farms, solar farms, etc.
Certain optical sensing systems have attempted to measure various parameters at multiple locations. However, such sensing systems generally involve costly and burdensome hardware, such as may entail a number of optical fibers and concomitant connectors as well as different types of sensors to sense the parameters of interest. It is believed that no optical sensing system has been developed which in a cost effective manner and in an integrated fashion is able to monitor multiple parameters, which may involve different parameter modalities.